Of course you did.

Linda interviews one of the onlookers, and the girl reiterates how shocked they are about what happened. “Like, we are a safe place here,” she says while a young man in a Patrón tank top next to her bobbles his head up and down in agreement.

Patrón leans toward the camera, looking for part of his girlfriend’s fifteen minutes. “Things like this don’t happen around here,” he says. “A drowning now and then, okay. Not a murder. We aren’t a murdering kind of place. You can put that on the news.”

London takes the close of her segment to drop a bomb.

“Sources close to the investigation,” she says, “indicate that a person of interest has been identified. They won’t tell us who it is, but we expect more details to come.”

Frank, who is sitting in his chair like the world’s ugliest Buddha, looks over at me. “I wonder who it is.”

“We all do, Frank,” Helen says, cutting the awkwardness of my silence.

“I’m going back to bed,” I say.

“How can you even sleep?” Frank asks. “Considering everything.”

I know that’s shorthand for everything you’ve done.

I ignore him and start back for the guest room. I’m not completely sure, because the TV competes with Frank’s voice, but I think I hear him say, “Don’t worry, Helen, that SOB is going down.”

As I try to drift off, I realize that sleep will elude me once more. There’s no way to compartmentalize what happened and what will happen next. I’m trapped in that mousetrap bed and held captive by my wife’s murder.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

LEE

It’s ten a.m. Monday, Memorial Day, and Frank Flynn is on the phone. His call doesn’t surprise me in the least; in fact, I’m a little surprised he waited this long. Even our short time together at the site of Sophie’s abduction in front of the Wisteria was enough for me to know that he’d be as hands-on with the case as we’d allow. He peppers me with questions about what I know, and I am as candid as I can be. Most of what I would hold back isn’t known—and won’t be until after the autopsy tomorrow.

“You need me to come in for a statement?” he asks.

“I already have your statement,” I say. “Unless you’ve omitted something you think I should know.”

“I’m pretty sure my son-in-law killed my daughter,” he says.

That’s about as direct—and as expected—as can be. Doesn’t matter that we have a witness who backs up Adam’s story of a struggle on the beach while he was one hundred yards offshore with his daughter. Frank Flynn’s dead certain his son-in-law killed his daughter.

“Why is that, sir?” I ask.

Sophie’s father doesn’t mince words. He reminds me of my own father. My dad isn’t a hothead like Frank Flynn. But then, my dad never had to talk to a police detective investigating his only daughter’s murder.

“He was having an affair on her,” Frank says. “Probably someone at work.”